The present invention relates to a high resolution optical system suitable for use in inspections and observations of micro pattern defects and foreign materials or the like typified in a semiconductor device manufacturing process and a flat panel display manufacturing process, and a pattern defect inspecting apparatus using the same.
With high integration of a semiconductor, circuit patterns show an increasing tendency to scale down. Under such a tendency, there has been an increasingly demand for a high resolution-based detection of pattern defects on a wafer to which masks and reticles used upon manufacturing a semiconductor device in a photolithography process, and circuit patterns formed on these, are transferred by exposure. As means for enhancing the resolution, may be mentioned a way to bring the wavelength of illumination light from visible light to ultraviolet light.
A mercury lamp has heretofore been used as a light source. Only required wavelengths were used by being optically selected from various emission lines held by the mercury lamp.
However, a problem arises in that each emission line of the mercury lamp is broad in light-emitting spectrum width and the correction of chromatic aberration of an optical system falls into difficulties, and a light source is scaled up to obtain a sufficient illumination intensity, thereby causing a decrease in efficiency and the like.
An exposure device equipped with a 248 nm-wavelength KrF excimer laser has recently been developed as a light source used for the exposure device upon semiconductor manufacture. However, the light source for the excimer laser is large in size and expensive. Further, a problem arises from the viewpoint of maintenance such as the need for predetermined safety measures because noxious fluorine gas is used.
As ultraviolet laser light sources, may be mentioned, for example, a laser device for wavelength-converting a solid YAG laser light beam by a non-linear optical crystal, an Ar-Kr laser device, etc. Each of them can obtain ultraviolet laser light having a wavelength which ranges from 266 nm to 355 nm.
However, while these ultraviolet laser light sources respectively have the advantage of obtaining a high output as compared with a lamp used as a light source, they have coherence. When the ultraviolet laser light is illuminated to a circuit pattern, unnecessary coherent patterns (speckle noise) occur and hence they exert a bad influence on the inspection of the circuit pattern.
Increasing the resolution of a circuit pattern to be detected needs to set the magnitude of illumination light launched into an objective lens to a suitable magnitude and illuminate a specimen from various angular directions. Since, however, the laser is used as a point source of light, it encounters a difficulty in increasing an illumination angle.
Further, each of the ultraviolet laser light sources wavelength-converts the solid YAG laser light beam by means of the non-linear optical crystal to thereby obtain a third harmonic wave (355 nm) or a fourth harmonic wave (266 nm) of the YAG laser beam. A wavelength converting device for obtaining the UV laser light in this way has been known in each of Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Nos. Hei 8-6082, Hei 7-15061, Hei 11-64902 and Hei 11-87814. However, when the crystal is irradiated with the laser for long hours, the interior of the crystal is deteriorated and hence the transmittance of the laser beam is significantly reduced. Therefore it is necessary to change a position to irradiate the crystal with the laser after the irradiation thereof for a predetermined time. As viewed from the standpoint of another aspect, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. Hei 8-6082, for example, performs such feedback control that a mirror corresponding to some of a resonator is mounted to a piezoelectric device or the like and displaced to make frequency tuning inside the wavelength converting device, whereby a resonator length is varied to change a resonant frequency. The present publication describes that the fluctuation of the frequency takes place when such frequency tuning is detuned, so that the intensity of output light varies. The variation in the output light is not on the order of an ability to visually confirm it, and is a very momentary variation. However, this becomes a serious problem for an apparatus for inspecting a pattern defect at high speed.